5 - Cultural Neuroscience

the ability to understand and predict complex social interactions and to outwit our peers

a shared set of values, skills, artifacts, and beliefs amongst a group of individuals

the transmission of knowledge/skills from person to person

evolutionary pressures to be socially smarter lead to more general changes (like increased brain size) resulting in increased intellect in non-social domains

• both social + non-social factors are important in increasing brain size/intellect
• need social learning to come up with innovative ideas
• need innovative ideas to learn something from each other

the same evolutionary selection pressures create the same outcome independently in different species

• taught monkeys two ways to get food from the same apparatus - by poking or lifting a stick
• the group members adopted the skill of their group and conformed to that social norm, showed resistance to other way
• shows that there is a social learning of a tradition and social conformity once that tradition is learned

units of culture that are transmitted from person to person according to their own perceived fitness

• a distinctive pattern of behavior shared by two or more individuals in a social group
• multiple traditions may constitute a culture

• general idea is that there are certain practices that are learned and quickly discarded
• then there are certain traditions that can be learned and become distinctive patterns of behavior

primates live in large groups where an individual’s survival and reproductive success depends on its ability to manipulate others within a complex web of kinship and dominance relations

• correlate between brain size and size of social group
• predicts human group size of 150

correlation between brain size and observations of tactical deception

correlation between brain size and social learning, but also non-social intelligence (innovation, tool use)

• western — independent sense of self, unique identity, separate from the other
• east asian — the self is tethered to other people, overlaps between self and other family members

• mother is more closely linked to self-concept in Chinese individuals than Americans
• the idea is that in response to a close other, self regions in the brain are more active in interdependent view of people, activates self concept more

Chinese people are much quicker to see the global picture, but those primed in independent view are much quicker to see local pic (see A instead of H)

• idea is to judge what the focal person’s emotion is, used eye tracking
• japanese people bounce around looking at other individuals more than the American — they have greater incorporation of the context

• Asian to white features were presented on a scale, wanted to see how expectations influenced the context and the way they see the face
• idea is to categorize the face
• mouse was racked
• incongruent scene (asian in american scene) — hand movements gravitate toward wrong side first
• congruent scene — no gravitating to wrong side

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• japanese students are better at judging asian mental states
• white people were better at judging white mental states

• imitation
• stimulus enhancement
• contagion

• reproducing the goals of another person
• but copying the action without understanding the goal of the action = mimicking

• aka local enhancement
• drawing attention to an object or location may facilitate self discovery
• ex. one monkey draws attention to another monkey to look at something, the other monkey puts it together and has his own self discovery
• not shared understanding but you led them down the path of figuring it out himself

repetition of behaviors that are innate rather than learned, such as yawning and laughing

• if newborn sees adult with hands occupied, they will use their hands to hit button
• but if newborns saw adult with hands free, they will also use their head
• this is because they understand that the adult would have used their hands if they had been free, so they understand the goal and attention and they are not just mimicking

• controversial as to if this exists in non human primates
• imitation serves as a more social function in humans (we like being imitated and we imitate people we like) whereas imitation in chimps may be used to obtain personal rewards

• when monkey is given a tool he knows how to use, receptive field extends across the entire tool
• when monkey is just holding too with no clear use, receptive field stays just on the hand

• monkeys and humans both have mirror neurons but they differ dramatically in their use of imitation and tool use
• macaque monkeys require 10-14 days of extensive training using special regime to use the rake tool

examine what is different in the brains of macaques that have mastered tool use after training and compare it to novices